The Future is Up to All of Us
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It is clear to more and more people that our Capitalist Empire is headed for failure and disaster. The Climate Crisis is a direct result of Capitalist values of Greed, Individualism, Materialism, and Militarism.
“Perhaps the most compelling real fact that radicals in our era have not adequately faced is the fact that Capitalism today has become a society, not only an economy.” Murray Bookchin, 1991.
None of these values can be separated out from the rest, as they are self reinforcing and part of a way of thinking and acting that is literally cancerous. As Samir Amin put it: The principle of endless accumulation that defines Capitalism is synonymous with exponential growth and the latter, like cancer, leads to death.
“For capitalism to desist from its mindless expansion would be for it to commit social suicide. We have, essentially, chosen cancer as the model of our social system.” Ursula K Le Guin
It was 20 years ago that I read The Fall of the US Empire — And Then What?, by Johan Galtung. In which he predicted the fall of the US Empire in 20 years, which is now happening as the U.S. is driven out of Afghanistan. He also predicted two possible outcomes — US Fascism or US Blossoming. He saw that it depended on how we, as a people, respond to this collapse.
I can see it blossoming, but from the ground up, when we as a people, undergo a “radical revolution of values” as Martin Luther King, Jr. called for, a year before being assassinated. I see my life’s work as getting people to see that there is a clear alternative to capitalist values — Indigenous/Communalist values, which I have developed into a seminar. Indigenous values are sustainable and in balance with the Natural world. They are the only real values that can get us through the Climate Disaster that is already happening.
But it is also clear that I cannot do this alone. Which I why I did two things: 1. I joined the Symbiosis network, as they have the same basic values. They are all over North America, including Canada and Mexico. They are also part of a trend in revolutionary thinking, whose ideas and models come from…